Video: Using the Print dialog box

While InDesign can be used for making onscreen interactive PDF or SWF files, for most users it all comes down to one thing, can we get it to print? In order to print this document out of InDesign, I need to go to Print dialog box, which I can find under the File menu by choosing Print. I am going to step you through some of the most common things that you want to pay attention to in a Print dialog box. When you first open the Print dialog box, you need to choose how many copies of the document you want to print and which pages. You can choose a page range here in this field and I do want to point out that if you're using different numbers, for example, let's say this document started on page 47, I could type in absolute page numbers.

Author David Blatner provides in-depth training on InDesign CS5, the print and interactive page layout application from Adobe, in InDesign CS5 Essential Training. The course shows how to create new documents with strong and flexible master pages, precisely position text and graphics, prepare documents for print, and export designs as interactive PDF or Flash SWF files. Exercise files are included with the course.

Using the Print dialog box

While InDesign can be used for making onscreen interactive PDF or SWF files, formost users it all comes down to one thing, can we get it to print?In order to print this document out of InDesign, I need to go to Print dialog box, which I can find under the File menu by choosing Print.I am going to step you through some of the most common things that you want topay attention to in a Print dialog box.When you first open the Print dialog box, you need to choose how many copies ofthe document you want to print and which pages.You can choose a page range here in this field and I do want to point out thatif you're using different numbers, for example, let's say this document startedon page 47, I could type in absolute page numbers.

For example, if I type +2, it means print the second page. it doesn't matterwhat the page numbering is. That targets the second page itself.Let's look at some of these other options.If you only wanted to print the even or odd pages, you could choose that fromthe Sequence pop-up menu.I need to talk about spreads for a minute.If you have a document that has a left and a right page, that is, a spread, youmight be tempted to turn on the Spreads checkbox.When you do that InDesign will print both pages together on the same page asthough it were a single page.

That's okay if you're just printing a proof but you don't want to try and printthat for your final output.That's a no-no. In your final output you want each page to print on its own.Let's take a look at some of the other panes in this dialog box.The Setup pane lets you to find how it's going to be printed onto the paper.The most important thing you need to choose here is the correct paper size.This not your document size.It's the size of the paper that you'll actually be printing on.These paper sizes are determined by your printer driver.Once you choose the paper size you can change the orientation, if you want printit sideways or straight up.

Notice that as I am making changes in this dialog box I am seeing this previewin the lower left corner.The white box is the paper that I'll be printing on while this gray box with theP in it is the actual InDesign document.This gives you some good feedback about how your document will print on the page.Obviously in this case the document would actually get clipped off on the bottom.So that's not going to be very helpful.On the other hand, even if I set it to Portrait I can see that the right sideand the bottom side are going to clipped off.

That's because this document has some bleed, some objects bleeding off the side of the page.So it's actually larger than its letter page.If I'm printing a proof and I wanted to print the whole thing on one piece of paper,I could click Scale To Fit and it would then scale it all onto the one page. Orif I set this back to 100% another option is to tile my document.If I choose tiling it breaks it up onto multiple pieces of paper.This can be handy if you have a really big document that you need to print out.

In this case, I am going to turn that off and move on to the next pane.The Marks and Bleed pane.If you want crop marks and registration marks and so on you can turn them on here.In general, the easiest thing to do is just turn on All Printer Marks.But I would recommend setting the Offset to something a little bit larger.That six points is kind of tight. I would set this to nine points maybe 12 points.Move it away from the page very slightly.If you do have bleeds or slugs you need to set them up in the Bleed and Slugarea. For example, in this document I have an object bleeding off the side allthe way to the bleed guide.

We talked about bleeds in an earlier chapter.If you want your bleed to actually show up you must either turn on the UseDocument Bleed Settings or type in your own values here.The Output pane lets you control what happens to your color as it's going to the printer.If you are printing to a grayscale desktop printer then you want to leave thisset to Composite Gray.If you are printing to a color printer then you are going to want to printeither Composite CMYK or RGB.In general, inkjet printers and even most color laser printers should betreated as RGB devices.

When I am printing to my color laser printer, I have got a Xerox color laserprinter, I always print at Composite RGB. The colors are much better that way.That said if you are printing to a grayscale printer you might also considerturning the Text as Black on.That way all your colored text will be set to black not gray. For example ifyou've got red text or something, it wouldn't ordinarily come out as gray andit's hard to read but if you turn Text as Black on, it will automatically be set to black.In the Graphics pane, I want to pay a quick attention to the Images and Fonts section.

Normally if you have high-resolution graphics they get sub-sampled when you print.That is the high resolution gets down- sampled to an appropriate resolution foryour printer. That's Optimized Subsampling.If you are printing just a really quick proof, you might choose Proxy instead.Then just a low-resolution proxy in InDesign will print out.That's a much faster print.On the other hand in some situations especially when printing to an inkjetyou might choose All.All will send the full resolution of your graphics to the printer.

So it will handle any sub-sampling if it needs to.In most cases though, especially for desktop printers, Optimize Subsampling is just fine.I do recommend that you send the complete fonts when you download and that youturn Download PPD Fonts on.That way you're sure that your fonts will be used in the printer, not any fontsthat might be resident in your printer.I found that solves a lot of font problems when printing.I am going to skip over that Color Management pane because color management isan advanced topic that I will cover in a later title.

The Advanced pane however turns out to be not so advanced.It turns out to be really important.The key thing here to pay attention to is the Transparency Flattener.By default this is set to Medium Resolution, which I find very strange becauseyou really want to use High Resolution most of the time.The Transparency Flattener has to do with how InDesign handles any transparentobjects on your pages.It has to flatten them, that is, fake the transparency by creating nontransparentobject for the printer.You should definitely use the High Resolution preset for this whenever possible.

The only time I would choose a lower resolution is if you try and print andit just takes forever.That's pretty rare.So High Resolution is the way to go.By the way, if you are printing to a non-PostScript printer like a desktopinkjet printer, a number of these features won't be available at all. On theother hand some other ones might be, such as Print as Bitmap.That can be helpful if you're finding that the image quality is not as good onyour inkjet. Try turning on Print as Bitmap.Well InDesign is really designed to print on PostScript printers I find that itpretty well a non-PostScript printers too.

Now once you've spent this time to set up the Print dialog box just the way you want it,I encourage you to save it as a preset.If I click Save Preset I can give it a name. I'll call this David's HP and when Iclick OK you'll see that that shows up here in a Print Preset popup menu.Next time I print to this same printer I can choose this preset and I could knowthat everything that I've done in a Print dialog box has been saved except forthe things that the pages. That isn't saved in the Print Preset.So I'd have to handle that myself manually.

The other cool thing about choosing a Print Preset is that you can find in the File menu.I am going to go ahead and click Cancel here without printing and I am going toshow you that in the bottom of the File menu there is a Print Preset sub-menuand there's my preset that I just created.Even better if I am doing a lot of printing to this, here is a super secret shortcut.If you hold down the Shift key when you choose the File menu and then chooseyour preset it'll print without even opening the Print dialog box, pretty cool.Now there is one more print option that I need to share with you and thatis printing a booklet.

When I open the Pages panel for this document I see that I have eight pages,a cover, some inside pages, and back cover.If I am printing this on my own large format double-sided printer I'll probablywant to create what's called printer spreads.In other words, pages one and eight will be together on one sheet, pages twoand seven will be on one sheet which is on the back of pages one and eight, and so on.In the middle pages four and five will print as a spread.Another word for creating printer spreads is imposition and InDesign has a verybasic imposition software built into it.

We can get to it by choosing the File menu and then choosing Print Booklet.In the Print Booklet dialog box you can see that you have variousimposition presets built in.Such as two up, three up, four up and so on.2-Up Saddle Stitch is the most basic kind.The Preview pane gives you a great preview of what going to happen when youactually print in your booklet.In this case, we can the pages eight and one on the same spread but it's notprinting on the letter size page that I've got.So let's go back to Setup and try and fit it to the page.

I'll click Print Settings, which brings up that Print dialog box, but this is aPrint dialog box specifically for Print Booklet.It won't let me change the pages or anything like that but it will let me dothings like scale it to fit.I am going to scale this to fit and print it sideways on the page. Click OK andcheck my preview again.And you can see that I am now getting the full printer spread on one sheet of paper.Again, this is totally appropriate for printing a comp, a proof, but it's notgoing to be appropriate for final output.

We can flip through the pages one by one so you can see what the spreadsare going to look like.Pages two and seven, pages six and eight and so on.One thing I get asked about a lot is why do I get a warning that additionalpages are being added.And the reason is that if you are printing a booklet, the pages in your documentmust be divisible by four, right?You have to have two on one side and two on the other.So if your page count is not divisible by four you will get a warning and PrintBooklet will actually add pages for you.

Ultimately the Print Booklet is feature is pretty good but it's nothigh-end imposition.If you are a printer or you are working with any kind of complex document,I would not recommend using Print Booklet.Instead I would export as a PDF and then use one of the many Acrobat plug-insfor doing imposition. Of course print is only one option for getting yourfiles out of InDesign. There are many other options as well including PDF,SWF, JPEG and more.

Q: In the “Exporting to PDF” video, the author states "The flattener, and how to control it, is an advanced topic that I cover in a later title."
Is this “later title” available on lynda.com yet?

A: Unfortunately that title is still in development. However, the features are exactly the same in CS4, so please see Chapter 11 in InDesign CS4 Beyond the Basics.

Q: Can an image be placed into a cell in InDesign?

A: Yes, but only as an anchored (inline) object. Cut the frame with the Selection tool, switch to the Type tool, click in the cell, and Paste.

Q: Is it possible to load or import pages from one document to another in InDesign CS5?

A: Pages cannot be “loaded”, but they can be "pushed" from one document to another by choosing Layout > Pages > Move Pages.

Q: When I place an image, it is distorted or pixilated to the point of not being able to use it. I can place or open those same images in Photoshop or Illustrator and they are fine.

A: You are likely seeing the low-resolution preview. To see high resolution or vector artwork, choose View > Display Performance > High Quality.

Q: When I place an image, it is distorted or pixilated to the point of not being able to use it. I can place or open those same images in Photoshop or Illustrator and they are fine.

A: You are likely seeing the low-resolution preview. To see high resolution or vector artwork, choose View > Display Performance > High Quality.

Q: I'm looking for a tutorial that will allow me to use InDesign to create files that can be emailed. I guess they have to be converted to HTML first? Is that possible?

A: If you are trying to make an HTML email, then InDesign really isn't the tool for you. It's HTML abilities are extremely limited. Look toward Dreamweaver for that. Alternatively, you could create a layout in InDesign, then export the page as a JPEG image and put that in the email.

Q: Since I upgraded to the new version of InDesign, when I click the "edit original" button in the Links panel, the pictures open in Preview instead of Photoshop

A: If you are using the Mac OS, you may need to turn off Window > Application Frame in order to see files behind InDesign (such as those on the Finder Desktop). If you are on Windows, you are seeing a difference between Mac and Windows. In Windows, the application is always living inside the application frame. If you un-maximize the windows frame, you can drag it smaller so you see the desktop and drag to or from it.

Q: I am currently working on an InDesign document originally created in Spanish. I am translating it to English and I need to change the language preference to be able to use the spell check in English. I have changed it in Preferences, but when I go to do the spell check on the document it is still in Spanish. How can I change the spell check to English?

A: Changing the language in preferences does not change the document or text language. You need to change the langauge in the paragraph style or the character style or in the Character panel or the Control panel (select the text first).

Q: In the movie, "Inserting, deleting, and moving pages" the author claims you can Shift-click text and the red overset symbol (a plus sign) will disappear. This isn't working for me.

A: Shift-clicking to make text automatically flow to the next text box or boxes only works when you place text from a loaded cursor. Shift-clicking existing text will not affect it.

Instead, if the overset text symbol appears in an existing text frame, choose the Selection tool and click the symbol to load the text in your cursor. Then Shift-click inside the next text frame to start it auto-flowing from there.

Q: I want to add a 2-page spread following a 1-page spread, but when I insert two new pages, InDesign creates a 3-page spread. How do I solve this?

Q: The keys used for navigating to the previous or next spread in a layout (Command+Page Up/Command+Page Down) don't appear on my laptop keyboard and the arrow keys don't work. What keys should I use?

A: Most laptop keyboards don't have these keys anymore. Look for a "modifier" key (such as the Alt or Fn keys) to press to access these keys. For example, on a Macbook Pro, you'd press Command and then Fn+Up Arrow to invoke Next Spread.

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